Hokie cape

Its no secret I am a Hokie. While some may have no idea what is, it means I am a Virginia Tech alumnus. We are the Virginia Tech Hokies. However, I'm living in the Boston area- rare opportunity to get some VT football up here. However, every other, the Hokies come up to play Boston College. So of course, I needed to deck the kids out in full Hokie gear for the game. 

So I expanded upon the capes that I made for K for Halloween and designed her a Virginia Tech Hokies cape for the game. I created a maroon cape-let for the top and orange for the main part of the cape. This time I made it a little thinner near the arms so instead of being a circle, it was more of an oval. 

Once sewed together, I attached orange and maroon ribbons for the tie closure. Then I added silver glitter and maroon glitter VTs and curlicues around the cape for some sparkle. 

I took scrap orange fleece and cut out a VT logo and glued it to the back. Then I outlined it with silver glitter glue. The glitter glue sealed the VT to the fleece. I added a few silver jewels around the back to catch the light and add some sparkle. Alumni Stadium at BC is open air meaning that we would be out in the sun for the game and the glitter and jewels would really sparkle.

The back of the VT cape

New Years resolution- Holstee Manifesto

I was playing around on Pinterest the other night and came across The Holstee Manifesto. I've seen lots of these other "subway art" style posters about the rules of life, the rules of the household, the rules of the classroom, etc. But this one really made sense for me. I think there is some very good advice here. "Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion. My New Years resolution is to take these words to heart a bit more and try to live by them more. 
What's your New Years resolution?

Christmas cupcakes

With the holidays, there is always a party to bake for. In the last couple years, a friend of mine has had a charity bake sale at work too. Then there are school parties, family parties, neighborhood parties....you get the idea. So there are lots of opportunities to make Christmas cupcakes.

I love making Christmas cupcakes because I can just be creative and not have to worry to much about design. They don't all need to look the same and can use the same color palette.

One group of Christmas cupcakes

These cupcakes were all made with vanilla frosting. They were frosted and then dipped in green sugar, red sugar, or rolled in sprinkles. Keeping them all frosted with vanilla makes the decorating move much quicker. I threw in a few Lego cupcakes again for the Christmas toy theme.

These cupcakes use M&Ms, candy canes, candy legos, candy pearls, various sprinkles, and Twizzlers.

Another group of cupcakes- all made with vanilla frosting.

Halloween princess cape

The snow is starting to fall here. There's a storm coming but we've got food and water, so we're just cuddling up and having some nice quiet time. I'm taking some time to post a few things I've been working on lately.

Princess K with the short version of the cape for the indoor Halloween party

As anyone in New England, or anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line knows, no matter what your Halloween costume is, it is most likely going to be covered up with a winter coat. This is especially true if you are planning to be a princess, fairy, or some other skimpy costume. What's the fun in that?

This year, I made K a princess cape out of fleece that coordinated with her Cinderella dress. She had a few indoor Halloween parties to go to so at first I took the top collar of the cape as a separate cape-let.

To start I made a small circle out of soft fleece, cut a neck hole and one slice for the opening. Then i drew curlicues and dots with silver glitter glue. On a few dots, I added blue or silver jewels. To fasten it to her royal highness, I just used a safety pin by the neck. She loved it and was the talk of the party.


For Halloween night which was chilly, I added a full length cape under the cape-let. The full length cape was cut from 1 1/2 yards of fleece. Again it was just a simple circle. Then I hand-sewed the capelet to the cape. It only took about 15 minutes to sew and it wasn't neat. I was rushing to get it done. But the stitching didn't show at all . I made two slits near her upper arm for her arms to come out the cape but still be covered by the cape-let. It kept her arms warm, but allowed her more freedom of movement for trick-or-treating and walking around.

The final version all decorated

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I made an additional cape to go with her Princess Merida (from the movie Brave) dress that she wore to the Halloween Parade. The design was the same, except I used gold glitter glue and jewel-toned jewels (reds, blues, greens, golds, etc). Instead of curlicues, I did a simple celtic X and O pattern which matched her dress.

The Princess Merida cape (from the movie Brave) for the Halloween Parade

The jeweled back of the Brave cape

Lego birthday cupcakes

For the kids' birthday, we decided upon a Lego theme. The party was held at a local sports place where they all played soccer and games for a while before coming in for pizza and cake. We were on a tight timeline and didn't want to waste time cutting cake, so I decided to do Lego cupcakes.

Katie blowing out the candles on the cupcakes 

I started with vanilla cupcakes baked in plain red cupcake liners. I piped on white vanilla frosting and added a few candy Legos onto each cupcake. Then I put on the marshmallow legoheads.

To make the legoheads, I followed these steps:

Yellow candy coating

1. Stick lollipop sticks almost all of the way through regular sized marshmallows. Then I rolled the marshmallows in my hands to fix any flat sides or dents.
2. Then cut mini marshmallows in half.
3. Stick one marshmallow half onto each marshmallow, on the flat side on top.
4. When the marshmallow half was stuck on, I pushed the marshmallow stick into a block of foam so that it was upright.
5. Melt small batches of yellow candy coating in the microwave. Make enough to dip and entire marshmallow into the mix.
6. Dip the marshmallow into the yellow candy coating and stick back into the foam.
7. Melt some semisweet chocolate put into a ziplock bag with a very small hole cut in it.
8. Use the chocolate to draw the faces on the legoheads.
9. Decorate into various faces.

I did cats, dogs, Princess Leia (chocolate hair buns), Harry Potter (glasses and scar), clowns, and anything I could think of. Be creative and tailor it to whatever your kids' interests are.

We made a big cupcake multi-tiered display out of duplicate Legos which made the presentation even more special. The kids had a blast trying to find their favorite legoheads and comparing theirs with the person next to them.

The whole legohead cupcake display

Harry Potter, a lovesick legohead, a happy boy and a head sticking out his tongue!

Smiles, a vampite, a cat, a cool legohead and one that's winking!

Introduction

I started thinking about this blog and how to introduce myself. I am a wife and mom of 3. I survived having twins although the jury is still out on that one- they are three and I feel that there are still many trials to come.  I'm not a writer (so don't judge me). I am a Hokie (a Virginia Tech alumnus). I believe life is in the details and joy comes from those details.

When I was planning my wedding 10 years ago, someone told me that Oprah had done a show on weddings. She asked people to think about the last wedding they had gone to and what they had remembered. Most people remembered certain things, like the cake, the dress, the flowers, etc. They didn't remember the food, the DJ (unless it was really bad) or the invitations.

I had a different thought- people remembered the things that stood as different, unique and spectacular. It is the details that matter. Do you remember that last drink you had at a wedding? No? Well, you might have remembered it, if the ice cubes had violets frozen into the ice cubes, or were displayed in antique punch bowls for self-service. Get it? 

So this blog is for me to post my details, my spectacular moments, and to share the ones I have found from you, so that we all can have more memorable details.